The GOP Glass Ceiling

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The GOP talking point du jour is about the Dems’ problem with women voters. Since Senator Hillary Clinton was not chosen to be on the ticket, the Dems have imposed a “glass ceiling,” they say. The usual tools on the Right and the Hillary Bitter Enders have picked up this ball and are running with it.

So let’s look at some numbers.

Eight women currently are governors of states.

Dem women governors: 5
GOP women governors: 3

I count 72 women in the House of Representatives

Dem women representatives: 52
GOP women representatives: 20

There are 16 women senators:

Dem women senators: 11
GOP women senators: 5

Numbers that lopsided are not a coincidence. And here are some more:

Number of GOP women who were serious contenders for the 2008 nomination: 0
Number of Dem women who were serious contenders for the 2008 nomination: 1

Number of GOP women who have been Speaker of the House: 0
Number of Dem women who have been speaker of the House: 1

Number of women the GOP has ever nominated to a presidential ticket: 0
Number of women the Dems have ever nominated to a presidential ticket: 1

Even as the McCain campaign sorts through its selection of rich white men for the veep spot, it has put out an ad asking why Clinton was “passed over” and showing clips of her smearing Obama during the Endless Primary. I’m sure the Hillary Bitter Enders will embrace the ad as more proof that Hillary should have been chosen the nominee.

BTW, current polls show Obama beating McCain among women voters by 12 percentage points.

18 thoughts on “The GOP Glass Ceiling”

  1. What do you thnk of the possibility that this out-of-the-blue Republican meme is coordinated, in anticipation of McCain shocking the world by choosing a female running mate? The only question being who, because Condi is damaged goods and there aren’t many other high profile candidates out there.

  2. Exile — There’s some buzz about choosing govenor Sarah Palin of Alaska. But she’s only been governor since 2006. Before that she was Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Before that she was a two-term mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

  3. How about Mean Jean as a running mate for McCain? She’s got a hardy appetite for killing Moslems and trampling on the financial concerns of working class people. On top of that, she wouldn’t need a large secret service detail for protection because she packs her own heat…that might help cut down on our 12 trillion dollar deficit

  4. McCain’s options are limited by having to actually pick someone seen by the voters as capable of taking over for him due to the mortality thing.

  5. Shirley Chisholm was nominated at the ’72 convention and recieved 152 votes for 5% of the total. So that makes at least 2 women nominated by the Dems.

  6. Carly Fiorina as McCain’s VP. Zero government experience, and let’s just say a checkered record as CEO of HP. Republicans go ga-ga over someone with Business Experience, and so she’s not out of the question. Especially if they don’t seriously think McCain is going to win anyway.

    But I think the answer is much simpler. Republicans don’t know the meaning of “hypocrisy”, and their only goal is to attack, and so floating this nonsense about a glass ceiling is – but of course, what would you expect from people without any scruples whatsoever.

  8. I’ve also heard Palin has some ethical issues: Apparently she used her political clout to get a former brother-in-law fired and may have some embarrassing info coming out in the upcoming Stevens trial.

    If McBush picks Condi, he can kiss the hard-core racist vote buh-bye. He needs it to win.

  10. When it comes to “affirmative action,” a phrase that makes present-day Republicans break out in a rash, the history of the Republican party could have been written by J.R.R. Tolkien. The lust for supreme power and the desire for precious, precious gold turned emancipators into bigots, like poor Smeagol degenerating into Gollum.

    1867 – The Republican Party convention, held in New Orleans, includes in its platform equal rights for African Americans.

    1869 – Wyoming is the first state to give women the right to vote. The state’s motto is “Equal Rights.”

    1870 – Hiram R. Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate.

    1916 – Pacifist, social worker and activist Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, is the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress… four years before the 19th Amendment gives women in all states the right to vote.

    1940 – The Republican Party platform includes the Equal Rights Amendment.

    Then the worm turns…

    In the late 1940s, unremarkable, alcoholic Republican senator Joe McCarthy gives the notion of “reign of terror” a test-run in the United States, with his anti-communist witch hunts. For quite a while, it works out really well for him.

    In 1980, bowing to pressure from the Religious Right in order to elect Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party drops all pretense of supporting equal rights for women.

    In 2000, openly claiming to represent the Religious Right, and a dab hand at “reign of terror” himself, Karl Rove becomes the most powerful never-elected person in the United States. Under Rove’s hand-puppet president, the status of women and people of color begins to resemble late-1850s Georgia. Fiddle-dee-dee.

    When I look up and assemble these facts in order, I feel like maybe this is The Saddest Story Ever Told. But…

    2008 – I dreamt last week that Barack Obama is elected our first African American president, by a completely unexpected margin of 66% to 33% over John McCain.

    Of course, I don’t pretend to be psychic, but as the historical record shows… stranger things have happened.

  11. Did Obama impose a glass ceiling? I missed that.

    Kristol must be losing his shirt in ‘straw’ futures because he certainly is selling off a helluva lot of it these days.

  12. Hillory shot herself in the foot by running a slash & burn campaign against Obama. There is one quote from Biden the GOP is circulating. They could run ad after ad after ad of HC attacking Obama. She got behind in the delegate count & she ran out of money. She tried desparately to change the rules – the same rules all the candidates agreed to going into the election to steal FL & MI. She practically encouraged pledged delegates that they were not bound to vote for Obama. She was willing to strengthen McCains hand in the General Election by going negative. She put her own campaign ahead of the good of the Democratic Party.

    Excuuuuuuse me, but she is getting more courtesy from Obama camp and the Democratic Party than she deserves. But we are in the GE and the Democratic Party needs the HC voters in Obama’s camp. So I’m willing to make nice with them.

    But don’t EVEN tell me she ‘deserves’ the VP slot or Obama ‘owes’ it to her to help retire her debt. Obama has more to worry about than her campaign debt. She burned her bridges in the primary campaign and she know it when she did it. She’s in debt up to her eyeballs because she did not know when to quit. BTW, will someone explain to me where the 18 million HC voters are in terms of paying off her campaign debt? A little less passionate, when it requires parting with cash, it seems.

  14. [The guy with the “no ma’am” site wrote a comment here. Just know that this is one sick, twisted (and banned) bastard with a pathological fear and revulsion of women. He assumed erinyes is a Buddhist and took “creatively” translated passages of Buddhist sutras out of context to “prove” the Buddha hated women also. The historical Buddha may have had some patriarchal ideas about women — this is something I’ve written about on the other site — but because of discrepancies between very early versions of the text some historians have suggested the worst stuff was added after the Buddha’s death.

    All that needs to be said was said by the great Japanese Zen master, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), who wrote,

    If a nun has received and holds the treasury of the eye of the true dharma, the arhats, the pratyeka-buddhas, and those on the three wisdom stages and ten noble stages [of the the bodhisattva path] will come, do obeisance, and question her about the dharma, and the nun will receive such obeisance. What is so exalted about a man? Space is space; the four elements are the four elements; the five aggregates are the five aggregates. For a woman it is the same thing. In acquiring the dharma, all acquire the dharma equally. All should pay homage to and hold in esteem one who has acquired the dharma. Do not make an issue of whether it is a man or a woman. This is the most wondrous law of the buddha.

    — original comment overwritten by maha]

  15. If McCain selects a woman as his VP pick, then I will pay attention to this. Otherwise, it’s just more noise from the chattering classes. I would not be surprised at all if some Republican leaning pundit next claims that Obama threw the African-American community under the bus by not selecting a black VP candidate.

  16. joanr16, comment 10 – I always knew that “the party of Lincoln” had honorable beginnings, and I very much appreciate this history. It is a great opening to begin a conversation with Republicans.

    I wouldn’t be surprised at all should your dream come to pass. I’ve been saying “landslide victory” for the Democrats this fall for a long time, and believe even more strongly today that it will pass.

  17. Thanks, moonbat. As I compiled it, I felt more and more like crying.

    Frankly, I’d settle for a 51% to 47% margin of victory in November. In waking life, 66-33 is more like a respectable approval rating for a sitting president.

    On a (tragically) related topic, I gave in and visited the woman-hater’s site to see what the deal was. This is not a joke: I strongly suspect that man has rope and duct tape in his basement. And if you Google him, you find he is widely “celebrated” by other potential serial rapists and murderers out there.

  18. Someone with more time and better Google skillz than me could compile the number of ex-wives (and ex-husbands) of Dem and Repub senators or congressional reps or presidential candidates.

    All sorts of interesting stuff is there jes waiting to pushed out, e.g., early, early this year, someone pointed out Rudy had more ex-wives than Mitt went hunting.

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